Hear the Curator (y1969-129)

Isamu Noguchi created Princeton’s White Sun while in the process of developing an installation called The Garden (Pyramid, Sun, and Cube) at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which features a dazzling white marble disk representing the sun. Princeton’s is one of several study versions of that sun; other studies include a black granite sun that is now in Seattle. As the artist said, “It has been my conceit to think that I have spanned the continent with a giant White Sun in the East and Black Sun on the western shores of America. May I say that Princeton’s White Sun is among my favorites.” Drawing on both Eastern and Western cultural traditions, Noguchi’s sculptures appear to possess an “effortlessness,” a virtue that Japanese artists once valued above perfection. This work is no exception.